Tania in China

Mon, Oct 16: Sore!

When I woke up this morning, I knew I had climbed up and down a mountain - my quads are sore! They got progressively sorer throughout the day, until finally when I left the office and had to step down two tiny-little 4 inch steps it was agony! My legs didn't feel this bad after my marathons - I have got to work on getting into better shape once my muscles have healed! My bobbing problem is also worse today; I don't know if it was the exercise or the bus ride that made it worse. I did a bit of searching on Google and I am sure it is not vertigo - all the descriptions talk about the room spinning - I am not spinning, I am bobbing. So, maybe it will go away some day...

I have now been in China for over a week, and am still healthy - no "Traveler's Diahrrea" yet! It would be really, really nice if I make it through the whole trip without any problems, but I have a feeling that is almost an impossibility...

At work everything is moving very slow because we are having networking issues between the servers in Shanghai - we hit a point where the various servers all sitting in the same room in Shanghai cannot even talk to each other because the network is too overloaded, and yet we can communicate just fine to each server from 200 miles away. Something is obviously configured wrong, but unfortunately we can't fix it here - we have to rely on the people who are actually in Shanghai. It needs to get fixed soon because Luigi is leaving to go back to Australia a week from Friday, and I would really like us to have all the software installed and tested before he leaves... So, if the network issues don't get resolved we may be working this weekend instead of visiting Shanghai. Oh, well. I was sent here to work, not to travel! ;-)

For lunch we just head back to the hotel to eat at the buffet. It is amazing how hard it can be to find something you want to eat, even when there is a very large selection of foods. I have to get more adventurous about trying new restaurants, and really getting out to experience the city. It could become very easy for me to stay in my little cocoon of the hotel and work, where everybody speaks English, and not end up really experiencing China.

After work I contemplate finally visiting the pool, but instead I stay in my room and end up listening to a Chinese lesson instead. I started listening to Chinese lessons in the car when I first found out I would be coming here back in May, but by the end of August I just couldn't take it anymore and quit. I had gotten up to lesson 11, so I listened to that lesson again last night. I think instead I am going to have to back up and listen through from the first lesson - there was an awful lot of things I didn't remember! I have got to dedicate myself to listening to a lesson everyday, and to using what I have learned in the real world.

For dinner I ended up buying Ramen again from the convenience store, and also bought an apple. I haven't seen apples like this in the US, the skin is pink and yellow, and they are very large. It was really, really good - the flesh was about the same texture as a granny smith, but sweeter. I am going to have to find out what we call them so that I can see if I can find them back home!

So, tomorrow I vow to actually leave the hotel after work and find something interesting for dinner!

posted by Tania @ 11:10 AM